By Pteryx
7
Tineeko!
As the four adventurers started on their journey, they decided take a recently discovered warp to go to Sky Land, take the Star Road from there to the underground Vanilla Dome in Dinosaur Land, and walk from there all the way to the Valley of Bowser. This way, they would save themselves the long walk through Yoshi's Island and Donut Plains, and hopefully sometime, too.
When they got to Lower Sky Land, though, they found that all was not well. A concerned-looking mushroom in white, thin robes came over to them and exclaimed:
"Luigi! Oh, thank the Lord you weren't caught! I'd heard rumors that everybody had been taken prisoner when King Koopa invaded... But who are these two turtles with you? They aren't enemies, are they?"
"No, no, don't worry. They're on our side. This is Lakitu, and this --"
"Lakitu?!" the mushroom exclaimed in delight. "I heard about how you and your friend Tineeko saved Prince Hugo in Giant Land! Oh, please save us from Ludwig and Roy Koopa! Roy is in that fortress in the distance, and Ludwig took over Upper Sky Land." The tower in the distance was enormous, seeming practically big enough to climb to Upper Sky Land on. It's a good thing that there's four of us, thought Lakitu, because that thing looks like it would be next to impossible for just Tineeko and me to defeat alone.
"I'm sure you'll need some power items to help you through, so take this." He handed them a chest which contained a cape feather, silver wings for Yoshi, and a green shell with golden wings attached.
"I was forced to fight a rather fast Paratroopa with gold wings, and when I jumped on him, he popped out of his shell instead of breaking his wings. I thought maybe Lakitu might be able to use it to fly like the turtle I subdued." He closed the box and handed it to Yoshi. "Take care," the robed mushroom said with a slight bow.
The foursome went in the direction of the huge tower, a bit of fear building up in all of their throats. It looked like it belonged in Giant Land instead of Sky Land. When they got close, they noticed that even though it was only about a third of the size of Neon Castle in the Valley of Bowser, it was big enough to house all of the Koopa kids as well as a complicated maze of passages, although they were very unlikely to all be there. Lakitu and company stared in awe at the tremendous place for along while before actually going in.
The first thing they noticed when they entered was that there was a lava pit that had only a single ledge at the entrance and two blocks, one near them, one at the other side of the pit. Lakitu hit the close block, but it just made a six-foor wide bridge of blocks over to the other one. The bridge wasn't long enough to get a running start for caped flight on, and the remaining block was too high to hit with a shell and too low to hit from underneath.
"Now, how in the world are we supposed to get that block?" asked Tineeko. Lakitu thought, then quickly opened the small chest that contained the items and said to Luigi:
"Take the feather and try to spin and hit the block from the side. It might have something useful inside to bring us up." Sure enough, when Luigi used the feather to gain a cape and followed his instructions, a beanstalk sprouted from the block and was quickly climbed by everyone. As the four rescuers reached about a hundred feet up, Lakitu got a mysterious shiver down his spine. He had been this high up, and much higher, without having any sort of fear many times before, so he wasn't sure what his problem was now. He just accused the lava below of making him nervous and went on. Higher and higher the foursome went, until they reached a platform with three doors and four Dry Bones guards.
"Oh, no. Mario and I have had a lot of problems with these guys. They keep coming back to life at the worst times!"
"Don't worry," Lakitu said. "I've dealt with these turtle skeletons when they were in a bad mood back in the Valley of Bowser. I'll just keep them down while you people go past." So saying, he hopped off of the beanstalk and jumped on each one in turn. The others zipped past while Lakitu defeated them again and again. Lakitu followed them just as the bonses reconstructed themselves for the fourth time, and they ducked into the first of the three doors they came to.
"Oh, dear..." said Tineeko when he saw the scene ahead. A wire fence was sinking into a lava pit at a very slow rate. Some red and green turtles were climbing up the fence (with difficulty), and it looked as if the four adventurers would have to do the same. As they jumped on, though, it sank a little faster. They climbed faster than they ever thought they could up the alarmingfence. When they reached the platform at the top of the falling gate, they were confronted by a swarm of bats and then saw two more doors. They took the one on the left to find another tough situation. Ahead of them was a wide, gaping, spiked pit.
"Whoa, stop the music!" shouted Luigi. "We can't jump that far!"
"Do Lakitu, Luigi, or Tineeko see any blocks?" Yoshi asked everyone.
"Just one way up there," answered Tineeko, "but none of us can jump that high."
"If only we had something to throw up there," Luigi said.
"Ahem," Lakitu cleared his throat. Everyone looked in his direction to see that he had removed his shell and was holding it in front of him, obviously implying that they throw it up at the block.
"But Lakitu," said Tineeko, "you could get hurt if we lost it and you get hit."
"I'll live," he replied with a chuckle. "I have been." Luigi then too the shell, jumped, and threw it upwards. The shell was right on target and struck the block, which had a cloud in it. Tineeko caught the falling shell and gave it back to Lakitu.
"Now how do we get up there?" wondered Tineeko out loud.
"Yoshi have idea!" Guess who that was. Yoshi opened the box of power items and ate the wings inside. They promptly reappeared on his back, and he flew Lakitu, then Tineeko up to the waiting cloud. The turtles rode the cloud across while Yoshi gave Luigi a ride. When they reached the other side, they found a huge, red, metal door.
"If I know how the Koopas build their towers, Roy should be on the other side," Lakitu said. Carefully opening the foor, making sure that it didn't make a sound to alert Roy, the four adventurers (Luigi still wearing a cape, Yoshi still bearing wings, Lakitu and Tineeko still in a cloud) sneaked in.
Roy didn't notice them, so they had time to take a good look at his room. There were large, deep puddles all over the place, most of them near a very deep swimming pool at one end of the room. The pool looked deep enough to be hard to swim in, even for good swimmers. The only block around was just low enough to jump onto. The foursome hid in a corner and tried to devise a plan.
"Luigi, are you good at holding your breath?" inquired Lakitu.
"Yeah, but why?" said Luigi.
"Good. The rest of us will drive Roy into that deep pool of his while you get on the block and use this." Lakitu handed hin the Inversion medallion. "Just hold it up and read the writing on it. The air will become water and vice-versa, so Roy will be trapped in his pool. It'll make you weak for a bit, but we'll help you into one of the air puddles so you can breathe."
They then proceeded to carry out this idea. Yoshi flew over in front of Roy and stuck out his tongue. Roy was infuriated and went after him. The turtles jumped on Roy, who was driven into his shell. The three of them pushed him into the water, where he popped back out of his shell and started to swim back up to land.
"Hurry, Luigi!" shouted Tineeko. Luigi held up the medallion high and loudly chanted, "Open sky, rolling sea, take each other'splace!" but nothing happened.
"Hey, what gives with this thing?!" he exclaimed.
"You fools!" said Roy. "Didn't you think King Dad would make sure the medallions would only work for turtles?" Upon hearing this, Lakitu suddenly leaped out, hit Roy again, jumped from there to the diving board, and bounced onto the block with Luigi. Yoshi was too amzed to put two and two together, but Tineeko immediately knew exactly what Lakitu was up to.
"No! Don't! You'll drown when you pass out!" Tineeko shouted.
"Luigi's right here. He'll bring me to one of the puddles." Snatching the Inversion medallion, he screamed:
"Open sky, rolling sea, take each other's place!"
A green bolt that shot towards the water from the magical item set it and the air into violent motion. Without moving the people an inch, the water and air had switched places within only a second. Luigi plugged the now-swooned Lakitu's nose and swamhim over to an air puddle so he wouldn't breathe in any water. They then heard Roy shout:
"You may have three of the medallions, but t here's no way you could get King Dad's Fog one! You won;t even live to see him,thanks to Ludwig's dangerous fortress guarding the Starpath entrance!" Since he couldn't jump all the way up to the top of what would be his swimming pool to get back at them, he retreated through a pipe that was just barely big enough for him to fit through.
Yoshi, Luigi, and Tineeko then tended to Lakitu. He was unconscious for five more minutes before opening his eyes. His body was aching all over, but his head hurt more. He sat up and moaned, then asked, "Did we beat him?"
"No, he got away, but at least he's no longer a threat to Lower Sky Land." said Tineeko. "Ludwig's still got Upper Sky Land, though, so let's get moving." They found a pipe on the ceiling and went in. They came out on top of the tall castle, a mild breeze blowing in the afternoon sun (the medallion had only affected Roy's room). All of Lower Sky Land was visible from this hightower.
"Do friends know where warp to Upper Sky Land is?" asked Yoshi.
"It used tp ne at the top of the Pyramid to the Sky, but that temple's missing!" said Luigi. Indeed, the spiraled pyramid that one resided on the coast was gone. The place was used all the time to carry Lower food to the landless Upper people. "Without that trade route, the Upper people will starve!"
"We've gotta find some way up to Upper Sky Land and find some way to bridge the gap, or they're doomed!" said Lakitu.
"But how?" asked Tineeko. "The cloud we had back in the castle disintegrated, and Yoshi can only hold one person at a time."
"How about that shell the person back there gave us?" Luigi suggested. "Lakitu might be able use it to fly."
"Wonderful! Thanks for reminding me, Luigi! Now, where's that box?..."
Soon, everyone was going up towards the clouds upon which Upper Sky Land rested. Luigi was flying with the help of his cape, Tineeko was riding Yoshi, who still had wings, and Lakitu was thoroughly enjoying soaring with his new golden-winged shell.
"Whee!" Lakitu cried as he sped through a little cloud, breaking it apart.
"Hey, wait for us!" shouted Luigi. "The rest of us can't keep up!"
"But this is just so much fun! I never realized there was any more to flying than transportation and the view when I was just using my cloud!"
"Just calm down," Tineeko said. "We can find more shells and do this together later."
"Ok, okay. Later," Lakitu replied, dissatisfied. Somehow, he knew that "later" was not coming for a long, long time. After thinking a bit, he thought, No, no, that's isn't the problem. Something's not right here. After trying to figure out what ut was that was really bothering him and not being able to do so, he finally got frustrated and shook it off.
After flying for a long time, the foursome made it all the way up to Upper Sky Land. As they landed and Yoshi's wings fadedaway, they saw immediately that there was no need to tell the people that their trade route to the ground was destroyed. There was a whole congregation of weak-looking mushrooms in bi-colored, pastel robes surrounding something. Luigi went over to them to see what was wrong.
"Oh, it's terrible," said a mushroom.
"There's some kid who had been sick and couldn't eat before the food shortage, and now he can't live on his rations," added another.
"We'd feed him more, but someone else would have problems," sobbed a third.
"I wish there was something my friends and I could do," said Lakitu with pity in his voice as he stepped in, "but we've beenliving on wild food and the kindness of others."
"Look! Another turtle!" shouted one of the mushrooms. The rest of the mushrooms then gathered behind the one who had first noticed Lakitu in an angry mob. Lakitu backed off and huddled with Tineeko and Yoshi.
"Hey, leave them alone!" Luigi blurted out as he jumped between them and the vengeful mushroom people. "They're not withKoopa!"
"They're... th-they'renot?!" stuttered a confused mushroom.
"No, they're not! They're fighting him!"
"Wait," a mushroom in a sea-green and peach robe said, making his way to the front of the crowd. "I was in Giant Land a couple of days before the Pyramid was blown up. Is one of you, perchance, known as Lakitu?"
"Yeah, that's me," Lakitu answered, stepping forward a bit uneasily, knowing how he heard of him but not sure if the others would believe him.
"I'm Metti. I heard about how you and your friend saved Prince Hugo from Lemmy and Iggy. Did you defeat Roy? I think he was in Lower Sky Land."
"No, he got away, but at least the land part of Sky Land is safe now," said Tineeko.
"It's still in a bit of trouble," Metti said unhappily. "Our peole make fine clothing, mattresses, and pillows which can't be madewithout the clouds or our skills. Unfortunately, the only ways for us to distribute our good is through the Starpath or Lower Sky Land. The Lower people get most of their gold coins selling our products. With the Pyramid destroyed, they'll have verylittle money.
"Can't mushrooms hit blocks to get coins?" asked Yoshi.
"No, there aren't that many blocks to hit there. Most of the ones that do exist have power items in them. It's a poor land inthat way."
"Why can't use use the Starpath?" Luigi asked.
"Ludwig is guarding it and only lets Koopas through. We can't get any more food at all. Besides, our earth-based cousins will go broke if we don't use them!"
"Well, we'll put a stop to that," Lakitu said boldly. "Until a new Pyramid gets built, you guys will at least be able to eat."
"Please hurry," Metti implored. "This child is surely doomed, and I don't wabt everyone else to suffer the same cruel fate."
The four adventurers began to fight their way towards Ludwig's faraway castle, but it wasn't easy. Tricky Paratroopas with silver and with gold wings, Super Koopas, Para-Beetles, Hammer Brothers atop flying platforms, and even Flying Rexes from Dinosaur Land awaited around every bend. There was even a Troopa who tried -- and failed miserably -- to fill Lakitu'sposition of throwing Spiny eggs from a cloud. The trouble was, he could barely move the thing at all, and after a while it dispersed and he fell with a bounce onto the clouds. The others got in a bit of a laugh at that, but somehow, Lakitu didn't seemto be able to smile. Indded, he had had a hard time just keeping a straight face for some reason ever since Rpy had been driven off. It can't be the starving people, because I was moping before then. It can't be that flying thing, Tineeko promised he'd try it with me later, and he hasn't gone back on his word yet. What is my problem?!
The next day, they were forced to go on with empty stomachs, since the mushroom they stayed with couldn't afford to give upany of his rations. After a few hours, they came to a large pit. None of the, could fly at this time, but there were plenty of blocks to jump across on. When they got to a medium-sized cloud with a sngle, small hole in it, they stopped to catch their breath.
"It's tough to do this... when you haven't eaten," Lakitu panted. Suddenly, Luigi sprang up.
"Incoming!" A large group of blue, silver-winged Paratroopas were closing in on them from the way they had come. After frantically glancing about, Yoshi cried, "We cornered!" The Paratroopas swooped down towards them, planning to attack the first good guy they ran into. As it happened, the victim was Tineeko.
"Help! There's too many of them!" Tineeko frantically shouted. The others rushed over, but in all the action they couldn't tellTineeko from the blue, winged menaces jostling him around. The struggle made its way over to the hole in the cloud. If one of the Paratroopas was forced to go over the edge, he would just flap until he was back in the fight. After some careful looking, the others were finally able to tell which turtle was Tineeko. They shoved some of the turtles aside as they tried to reach him. All but two of the cowardly Paratroopas flew away. The remaining ones were just a bit too far away to reach in time to stop them from pushing Tineeko over the side. The cackling winded tortoises then flew off, probably to brag of their glorious victory to Ludwig.
Lakitu rushed over to the hole and cried out with every bit of air in his lungs, "Tineeko!" His despair was so great, he had to be held by the shell by both Luigi and Yoshi to keep him from jumping after his doomed friend. He frantically pulled out his little fishing pole and cast the line down towards Tineeko with a furious thrust, but it fell a great many yards short of the plummeting turtle. He struggled to pull free of Luigi and Yoshi's protective grasp, desperate not to lose him. As he saw the last signs of his favorite person in the whole world shrink to an infinite point, he finally realized there was nothing he could do, no way to save him. The others let go as Lakitu collapsed into a pile of turtle flesh spilling salt water all over the cloud. He pulled his lefs into his shell, but left his hands out to bury his soaking, scarlet-covered face in. He must have let loost about a quarter of the water in his entire body in the hour and half in which he wailed. At least, the little cloud could take no more of his wetness without turning dark and grey. Yoshi tried to go over to him, but Luigi just grasped his arm and shook his head. They left the now dried-out, quivering Lakitu to sob alone.
After Lakitu was able to stand again, the reduced party moved along. They were encountering obstacles no tougher than they had met before, but they were having a harder time dealing with them since Tineeko wasn't there to lend a hand and Lakituwas too depressed to be much help. Practically all the now-jumpy turtle could do was bombard every blue Paratroopa he saw with Spiny eggs, whether it was one of the ones who was at the site of the tragedy or not. He had become excitable to the point that it scared Luigi and Yoshi a bit.
"Are you sure you're all right, Lakitu?" asked Luigi at one point.
"All right?!" Lakitu loudly exclaimed, exasperated. "Of course I'm all right! Why wouldn't I be all right?" Luigi hopped back a few feet, a wide-eyed, pale expression on his face, his limbs pulled in a bit close.
Lakitu had never felt so awful in his entire life. He didn't really mean to take it out on others, but he just didn't know what todo without Tineeko. The first thing he noticed that he missed was having him identify and clarify an important problem by stating it simply in the form of a question. This had always helped him organize his thoughts and come up with a solution, and occassionally even helped him pay attention to an important problem he hadn't noticed. But now, without Tineeko to help him, we would often lose patience with complicated situations. Although it hated to say it aloud, he often desperately wished Tineeko was there beside him, at least long enough to ask just one question.
Eventually, they came upon Ludwig's castle. Showing no obvious evidence of seams, it was indeed a fine piece of work. There were windows only on the top floor, and a singly, sturdy door was centered in the front. There was a high fence that the fort interrupted which, more likely than not, blocked the way to the Star Road entrance. As the threesome approached the place, a Magikoopa, one of the turtle wizards, appeared in front of them.
"Give up! You'll never reach the Starpath! My colleagues inside and I will make sure of it!" With that, he shot a twinkling beam from his wand and vanished. The beam itself was easily avoided, but it hit a plain, metal block, which turned into a fireball that shot back at the adventurers! Everyone managed to get out of the way, though Lakitu was so close, he could feel its burning heat just behind his head as he dodged it.
"Boy, they never did that before!" he exclaimed, panting.
"Must have been practicing their magic lately," Luigi hypothesized. The three then cautiously went in the front door.
This fort was crawling with spellcasters! Not just one, but about four wizards at a time qwew encountered around every bend, in addition to a few ghosts and myriad Dry Boneses and Thwomps. It seemed that every time they found a different typeof block, the sorcerers' wands would turn it into a new attack. Rotating yellow blocks would turn into yellow Koopa Troopas; purple, throwable blocks would explode into many flashing, colorful pieces; bouncy, white blocks with music notes on the sides would turn into yellow Paratroopas that would more or less hover in one spot; and stone blocks would be enchanted so they would become ghosts every time the threesome looked away. Lakitu tried throwing a Spiny at a group of mages at one point, but when the Spiny hatched, they just turned it into a gold coin and laughed.
Eventually, the adventurers got to a fairly big, green door. As they wondered whether they should take this door or look for another, Yoshi heard a low rumbling. He looked up, then shouted, "Heads up!" A huge stone slab was sliding down from the ceiling to them, accelerating as it went. The panicked trio ducked through the door just a second before the trap would have crushed them.
They weren't too much beeter off in the next room, though. The same wizard they had met outside was there, waiting for them! As soon as he saw that they had actually survived the perils of the large castle, he started throwing a fit. He shot a beam towards an average, metal block, which turned into a fireball that shot towards the threesome, which they had to jump over. After jumping over and ducking a few more of these (there was a whole wall of blocks), Lakitu suddenly got an idea.
"You think you're so great just because you have that wand, don'tcha?" he taunted. The sorcerer's face twisted into an expression of confuse and surprise.
"Well, of course I am!" he replied.
"Oh, really? I dare you to take us on without it."
"What?!" Yoshi then grabbed the wand with his long, froglike tongue and began to eat it.
"Hey, that's not fair!" the Koopa wizard exclaimed, stomping the floor. He fished in his pocket for something while Yoshi swallowed the wand. He then pulled out an orange cloth packer tied with a loose knot which he threw at Yoshi. It released a powder which caused Yoshi to turn orance with blue polka-dots, shiver, and cringe.
"What did you do to him?!" Luigi demanded.
"Oh, it's just this nasty little chilling disease I've been working on. He won't be able to eat anything else I have, and will probably go crazy after a while, if I made it well enough. You've got your own problems, though." With that, he pulled out another packet of powder and hurled it towards Luigi. Fortunately, he missed. Lakitu then jumped on the wizard, knocking him out. He then searched his pockets to see if he had made an antidote in case he got one of the Koopas by mistake. It seemed as it the conceited Koopa thought he'd just need to powder and not the antidote when Lakitu saw that one of the packets was blue. He went over to Luigi and Yoshi with it.
"Found an antidote?" Luigi asked, holding the quivering Yoshi.
"Let's hope so," Lakitu replied, opening the royal blue packet and tossing the contents over the panic-striken dinosaur. Starting from the point where most of the dust landed, Yoshi began to turn green again, warm up, and stop shaking. Yoshi then breathed a sigh of relief.
"It was horrible!" he said. "Yoshi so scared, Yoshi got cold and shook. Yoshi couldn't move and was too scared to anyway. Everything look bad, even Luigi and Lakitu. It was unbearable!"
"I wish there was some way to get rid of those terrible packets, but there's nothing to burn them with," Luigi said. Lakitu wasn't thinking about that, though. He was thinking about how the sorcerer hit behind his magic. He sort of noticed that he looked afraid of not having his wand to lean on. I guess I sorta hide behind my Spiny eggs, don't I? he thought. Then he realized that he barely threw any during the time he was with Tineeko. He had to admit, having Tineeko supporting him was rather comforting. Now, without him, he was throwing Spiny eggs again.
"Come on, Lakitu, we haven't got all day!" Luigi said, interrupting his thought processes. "We have to save the people of Upper Sky Land!"
"Oh... uh, right." Squeezing through a hole in the once-solid wall of blocks, the three adventurers continued into the next room.
After dealing with a few ghosts, they found Ludwig's room. Before Luigi could walk over to open the door, though, Lakitu grabbed his arm.
"What if Ludwig trapped the door? You both know he makes all sorts of dangerous gadgets, We have to find some way to trip it without getting hurt." Lakitu then took out a green, unripe Spiny egg, stepped back and had everyone else do the same, and threw it as a fairly large stone in the floor. The instant it hit, fireballs and laser beams converged at that point, and a huge, metal, spiked, pointed pillar shot down towards the ashes of the egg. Everyone's heart stopped for a moment to gasp in shock. As the trio went back towards the door, Yoshi commented, shaking:
"Yoshi almost have relapse then!" The others just carefully opened the door and made no comment.
The room seemed to be empty, but they all knew better than that. Ludwig had to be hiding somewhere. Them they heard a rumbling in the ceiling. Looking up, they saw that a large piece of it was being lifted up into an attic. Sensing trouble, they withdrew slowly. Suddenly, a huge, two-wheeled contraption with wide, stone wheels fell out of the hole and began to roll after them. A mad cackle came from the machine as the three adventurers ran. Snapping his head around, Luigi saw that the driver of this thing was Ludwig!
"Watch out! It's another one of Ludwig's inventions, and he's in it!" shouted Luigi.
"Heads up, Yoshi!" yelled Lakitu as he jumped on his back. He pointed at a white block with a music note on it. "See that jump block? Bounce on it and try to land on Ludwig." Yoshi complied. As the two shot through the air towards Ludwig, he panicked. Yoshi landed on Ludwig's head and the brakes respectively.
"You did it, Yoshi!" exclaimed Lakitu joyously. "You were great!"
"Aw," blushed Yoshi, "it nothin'. It Lakitu idea."
"Maybe, but you made it work." Lakitu felt so good about being able to collect his thoughts all by himself, without one of Tineeko's organizing questions! Tying up the dazed Ludwig in some nearby spare wire, the threesome went to the back door that led to the Star Road. They then noticed that guarding the big star was a Bob-omb! Luigi then got a flash of inspiration, Shaking a tiny bit, he said somewhat feebly:
"Y-you call yourself a Bob-omb?! You're the tiniest Bob-ombI've ever seen! I bet you can't make a one-inch hole! It was still enough to anger it, though, and its wick caught fire. Unfortunately, Luigi became too scared to move and carry out his plan. Lakitu then suddenly realized what he was trying to do, ran over, grabbed the burning Bob-omb, threw it at a corner of the protective gate, and screamed, "Hit the dirt!". Everyone jumped clear of the bomb and crouched fearfully in another corner. The bomb then made a thunderous explosion that blew up part of the gate and brought the castle down!
"Wonderful! Now the Upper Sky people won't starve!" said Lakitu.
"Speaking of which, Yoshi starved," said the thinning green dinosaur. "Yoshi hope find some food!" When the three heroes walked onto the large star on the ground, a strange, tiny, glowing yellow whirlwind hastily carried them upward to the Starpath.